Successful Practices & Strategies Vol. 2 | No. 1

Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office

Asheville, North Carolina 

http://www.buncombecounty.org/governing/depts/sheriff/

Community policing element 

Community partnerships and problem solving 

Problem/issue 

Building and sustaining relationships with the 

community 

Problem description 

The Buncombe County Sheriff's Office (BCSO) implemented a very successful COPS (community oriented 

problem solving) team program that has been hugely successful about two years ago. 

Community policing strategies implemented 

Our COPS teams consist of five members, a facilitator, and a supervisor from different divisions within 

our organization. They are given an ill structured community problem and are given 30 days to work full 

time on the assigned issue. The first day, the COPS team members attend an intensive training on 

problem based learning and our community policing philosophies. We provide a meeting area for team 

members on the administrative floor of the sheriff’s office. They are given computer and phone access 

and any other necessary tools. Team members then spend a day or two researching their assigned 

problem, including scheduling a community meeting with residents and stakeholders in the affected 

area of the county. The sheriff, COPS team members, and command staff attend each community 

meeting. Talking directly to the community members about the problem and listening to their concerns 

reinforces the fact to our citizenry that we care, are engaged, and are accessible to them. These 

meetings also provide valuable feedback to the COPS team, which helps better define the problem they 

have been assigned. The team spends approximately the next three weeks working with outside 

community partners like the Department of Social Services, the U.S. Department of Transportation, 

educators, treatment providers, and other law enforcement agencies and community organizations to 

address the problem. In the last step, the COPS team puts together a presentation for the BCSO 

command staff and any community partners or stakeholders involved to outline the problem, review the 

results of their work, and make recommendations for future improvements. 

The COPS team program has been of tremendous benefit to our agency and the community we serve in 

providing intensive attention to a wide array of community problems resulting in measurable 

improvement in the quality of life in our community and lasting goodwill. Internally, the COPS team 
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program provides our employees hands on training in problem based learning and community policing. 

The employees in every case leave with a greater understanding of the overall operation of the sheriff’s 

office and become energized ambassadors of the practice of community policing. We recently 

completed COPS team 17, our 17th COPS team since implementing the program. 

Change and/or impact as a result of these community policing efforts 

BCTV films most of our COPS team presentations. The video is uploaded to YouTube. Several of the links 

are below: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx6irfAjXdM 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DenikmqoI54 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9aQFudch_8 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvx2iRv4sX4 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22Em3Q3F4tw 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbydaeCqkrE 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XGMDCDfOY0 

** If the link is not active, please cut and paste in your internet browser to view. 

Lessons learned through program implementation 

Every COPS team concludes their presentation with a summary of lessons learned and 

recommendations for moving forward so that we are not facing the same problem several months down 

the road. Please see the video links posted above for a synopsis of lessons learned by each team. 

The opinions contained herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the 

U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an 

endorsement by the author(s) or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement 

discussion of the issues. 

The Internet references cited in this document were valid as of the date of publication. Given that URLs and websites are in 

constant flux, neither the author(s) nor the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services can vouch for their current validity. 

Published 2015